Letter : Human genes: patently not the case

From Mr Andrew Sheard

Sir: Your report today on the rejection of the European biotechnology directive by the European Parliament suggests that the biotechnology industry is disappointed with the outcome.

In my experience, both as a Patent Attorney representing various biotechnology companies and as a member of the Industrial Property Advisory Committee of the Bioindustry Association, that is not the case: the industry is in general pleased that the Directive was rejected. What had started out in 1988 as a moderately useful but hardly essential tidying-up exercise in a difficult area of law subsequently became a vehicle for special-interest groups to undermine the growing and established case law which permits the patenting of proteins, DNA and other entities important to the biotechnology industry.

Although industry could have lived with the rather tortured compromise wording eventually put to the European Parliament, frankly there was something of a sigh of relief when the whole package was rejected. The law can now continue its largely harmonised development in a manner that promotes and balances the interests both of the industry and of the consumers who will ultimately benefit from its efforts.

Yours faithfully,

A. G. SHEARD

Kilburn & Strode

Patent Attorneys

London, WC1

2 March